Application for Khairy Shalaby Literary Award launches on Feb. 1

CAIRO – 31 January 2021: The Khairy Shalaby Award for the first fiction work announced the launch of its second edition, which is scheduled to open for applications from February 1, 2021, to April 30, 2021.

In its second edition, the award holds two surprises. The first is a partnership contract with El-Shorouk Publishing House to publish the winning work, which will be announced in September.

The second is to abolish the age requirement that was among the conditions of the first edition, in order to give greater opportunity to those who stumbled into publishing their first novels for one reason or another.

The short list will be announced on July 21, 2021.

Khairy Shalaby, an Egyptian writer and novelist, was born on January 31, 1938. He was dubbed the “writer of the marginalized”. Along his rich literary career, Shalaby wrote many novels, short stories and books of criticism, which summed up to 70 books.

He has received many awards and honors, including the State Encouragement Award in Literature 1980-1981; Medal of Sciences and Arts, first class, 1980-1981; and Naguib Mahfouz Award from the American University in Cairo for the novel “Wekalet Attiya”, among others.

Shalaby passed away on September 9, 2011, at the age of 73.